First Love A Maximum Ride story
by IAmEverdeen98
Summary: Summary: Fang meets me. We become friends. It gets more exciting as you go along.
1. Chapter 1

"You need some help?" she inquired, gliding up behind Fang with the ease of a feline.

He turned to see a girl, slightly shorter than him, with a curious face half-hidden behind a cascade of deep brown curls.

"No thanks, I'm good."

Standing on her toes to see over his shoulder, the right corner of her mouth turned up a tad.

"Are you sure? I can hardly read it, but I can find at least four wrong answers right off the bat. And you skipped the entire top half."

His face, young but handsome in its own right, twisted into a frown. Who did this chick think she was, laughing at his paper? It wasn't his fault he'd never been in school before. He snarled, "So what? I'll get to those later." The girl simply laughed in an intelligent alto. Attempting to make amends, she said, "I'm sorry. I could help you out, if you want. Why don't we sit?"

The rest of the class period was filled with dates, names, and grudging nods from Fang. Eventually, the two students finished and corrected the paper. Rising from the desk and pulling her uniform blazer back onto her shoulders, the girl inquired, "So, do you think you get it now?"

"Yeah, thanks…" began Fang. He realized he'd never asked the girl for her name. He didn't need to.

"Darby," she said, offering her long-fingered hand. Unlike most girls in her ninth-grade class, her nails were short and not painted some neon color. Fang offered his hand and name as well, and they shook.

"It was nice to meet you, Fang," said Darby.

"You, too," said Fang.

_Hmm,_ they thought as they exited the room. It seemed so dry, their interaction, so impersonal. Yet, both of them wanted to see the other again, for some odd reason. Both wondered what the other was doing when they would go home for the weekend that afternoon. Both wondered why they couldn't keep the other out of their thoughts.

It was late April, near the end of the school year for the students of Valencia Vaughn Prep. For most, this meant going to the barrier islands on weekends in their brightly colored swimwear, spending days at the poolside attempting to impress the opposite gender, or staying at their heavily air-conditioned friends' houses. For Fang, it meant flying two miles above the earth. He was by himself, which he preferred, the wind rippling through his black tee shirt. Relaxing his wings and tucking them closer to his tall frame, he dive-bombed towards the earth, a smug smile on his face the entire time. He whipped his huge wings, dark as his shaggy hair and eyes, back out in time to soar back upwards before crashing to the treetops of the forest that used to cover most of the town he was camping in now. He was just coming to Vaughn because he wanted to avoid the Erasers that were on his tail. Or rather, wings. He hadn't run into them yet. He'd always come across a band eventually, and he'd have to run or fight his way out and move on to the next place. This was a record: Fang had managed to stay in this coastal town for a whole semester. But he knew it was only a matter of time before he'd have to abandon this place. And school. And Darby…

Darby! Dread filled him at the thought of leaving her and not being able to tell her why. He should do something. He should see her and at least talk to her one last time. He took off towards the ground at an incredible speed, impatient to get back to the ground. He landed shakily in the middle of the forest, and after ten minutes of crashing through the dense trees, he wound up by the library. _Of course, where else would she be? _Very happy to have wound up at the only logical place Darby could be, he strode up to the doors without really paying attention. Flinging the heavy door aside, he took a step and just about gave her a heart attack. She was trying to get through the same door, and they opened it at the same time without seeing each other. Books were rapidly falling out of Darby's arms, and apologies were dropping out of her mouth.

"So sorry, Nick!" (Nick is the name he gave her instead of his 'real' one.) "I didn't see you! So sorry!"

_You really screwed yourself this time,_ thought Fang. Silent, he bent to pick up the tomes that littered the doorway. He noticed the titles: _Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, A Tale of Two Cities, Nine Stories._ He wondered who wrote all of those, and who'd ever have the time to write a book. He wrote a blog, horribly spelled and hugely sarcastic, but books had seemed frivolous to him. But clearly, novels were held in about the same respect to her as her own family. Why else would she have so many? This girl was really weird.

When all of the books had been returned to her unusually pale arms, they stood in the doorway, not quite sure what to do next. An elderly woman was squeezing her way past Fang, a look of revulsion in her wrinkled eyes. The kids glanced at each other, blue meeting almost black, and nodded as if to say, "We should move." Move they did, sitting on the steps of the library. They sat in silence again, still unsure of what to do. Then Fang remembered the books she still cradled. If he could get her talking about something she was obsessed with, he wouldn't have to say much at all. So he did something uncommon for him and started the conversation with, "Hey, who wrote all of those books you dropped?"

This got her started in a way he'd never seen before. Darby's blue eyes shone, and she rattled off every author, what the books were about, which ones she hasn't read yet but would like to, which ones she's reading again, and her favorite characters from them all. She loved words in a way he never could, but it was interesting to see her so on fire for literature. Eventually, she slowed down and asked Fang a question.

"I've never known quite why for a long time, but I finally realized one day why guys hate romance novels. Do you hate them as much as my brother does?"

"Depends on how much your brother hates them."

"One day, he gathered up all of Mom's romance novels—you know, the ones with the overly muscular guys dressed as cowboys or whatever—and burned them."

His mouth hung open in shock. Did he really hate them that much?

"…I don't hate them _that _much."

She laughed in her throat, and said, "Good. In a way, they glorify men. Romance novels, I mean."

"Not really. It just makes us look too passionate."

"Not to mention it makes things seem really hard. Like, you know how imprinting works from _Twilight?_"

He shook his head. He didn't even know what that was.

"Well, what happens is when you see the girl for the first time, the entire universe has to revolve around her. The way a character from the books describes it, gravity shifts. It's not so much a feeling as it is a new reality. You don't have to work to keep it that way, keep her the most important thing. It just…happens."

"Yeah, like, how are we supposed to compete with that?"

"I know! And personally, if any of the things guys say in romance novels were ever said to me, I'd freak out and be more scared than attracted."

"The girls in those books are so easy, they'd melt if somebody said they looked nice."

This sprouted into a conversation about the populars from school, which then became the cafeteria food, which then became the creepy kid who sold bubble-gum sculptures for $2.75 each. They found it so easy to talk, they completely lost track of time, said reluctant good-byes, and unofficially became friends that day. But it would be months before they decided to truly trust each other.


	2. Chapter 2

It was late August, the twenty-third if you want to be exact. Darby's fourteenth birthday. Fang couldn't believe it was only her fourteenth. She seemed older; probably because of how mature she was compared to her to friends sitting on either side of him in the backseat of her family's old truck. They were talking across his lap in shrill voices, giggling, and passing their phones back and forth showing each other text messages. Darby turned around and gave him a pitying smile. Angry as he was about the seat he was in, he liked when she smiled. But he kept a stoic poker face and pretended he didn't see her.

"Ohmygoshisn'?" squealed Amber, a short brunette who always smelled heavily of vanilla frosting. She was showing Heather, a blonde who always agreed to what Amber said and tried to match everything from her outfits to her speech patterns, a text from Greg that said, "ily 3." She agreed heartily in her light southern drawl. Heather's many jangling bracelets sang out as she reached across Fang's lap for the hundredth time to take Amber's rhinestone-studded phone from her hand.

He hated girls like this, so fake and shrill and shallow. They were all the same, so it seemed, catty and interested only in pop stars and having as many guys vying for their affections as possible. They seemed to be the only kind of girls in the school. Even the most unpopular ones acted this way.

Except Darby. She felt…real. She didn't try and put on a charade to be like the others, wear ridiculously revealing clothes or five pounds of eye makeup. Her standard uniform wasn't lip-gloss, gold hoop earrings, and some poor new beau, but it was a paperback classic, her school uniform, and her intelligent manner of speaking. _She's an awesome girl…_ thought Fang as the truck rumbled across the dead-flat road that led to the beach house where they would all spend the weekend in honor of her fourteenth year on this planet.

The car screeched to a stop in a sandy driveway. Everyone hopped out, stretched their stiff limbs, and raced towards the small cottage to call dibs on the best bedroom.

"The master is for the parents!" called Darby's father.

"We know!" Darby yelled back.

"The one by the kitchen is mine!" shouted Darby's older brother, Damien. He was seventeen, six-foot-five, and had arms that could probably bend metal. Nobody wanted to argue with _that._ And nobody did, instead scrambling for the rooms in the back of the house. Fang settled for a simple room with a single full bed, a dresser, and a night table. Amber and Heather immediately claimed the room with two twin beds, a walk-in closet, and a TV, not to mention the huge floor-length mirror that they could fall in love with themselves in. The birthday girl got her usual room, the one with the large window that overlooked the ocean and the tall gray bookshelf. She'd read every single volume, of course, over the many years that the family owned the cottage. She took a slim book from its nesting place between _Hello, Miss Piggle-Wiggle _and _Shiloh_. The title, in a curling script, said _A Wrinkle in Time._ Darby smiled. It was her favorite book as a child. The spine was cracked from overuse, and the pages had been dog-eared many times over. _Did I really abuse my favorite book this much?_ A single leather bookmark, colored scarlet, marked her favorite page, and she slowly turned to it.

"_I _hate _being an oddball," Meg said. "It's hard on Sandy and Dennys, too. I don't know if they're really like everybody else, or if they're just able to pretend they are. I try to pretend, but it isn't any help."_

"_You're much too straightforward to be able to pretend to be what you aren't," Mrs. Murry said. "I'm sorry, Meglet. Maybe if Father were here he could help you, but I don't think I can do anything till you've managed to plow through some more time. Then things will be easier for you. But that isn't much help right now, is it?"_

"_Maybe if I weren't so repulsive-looking—maybe if I were pretty like you—"_

"_Mother's not a bit pretty; she's beautiful," Charles Wallace announced, slicing liverwurst. "Therefore I bet she was awful at your age."_

Even now, Charles Wallace's sense, keen for a six year-old, made her laugh. If only Damien had his strange, polite way of stating fact. If only she didn't feel exactly like Meg all the time now. Darby put the book back on the shelf.

The party was exquisite. There was glowing string lights hung over a framework pavilion, making it seem as though fireflies shrouded everybody. The sun was setting as they ate, and even Fang, friendless and the only guy (not counting Damien and Darby's father) was enjoying himself. Yet, Darby was not. The food, the gifts, the airy chatter her mother kept up with the party guests, seemed like an act, as though she were on a sitcom and the cameras were behind her, clicking away. If this was a sitcom, she didn't memorize her lines. So she decided to improvise, trying her best to play along with the situation and the people around her. It appeared to work. But she could feel a pair of eyes, dark but warm, boring into her head and asking what was wrong.

Cake consumed, wrapping paper discarded, and eyes drooping, the majority of the partygoers shuffled back to the house. Only Darby remained, sitting under the firefly house, staring at the sea. She didn't want to go just yet. There were some things she had to figure out. Fang remained as well, blending into the shadows just beyond in his silent way. He was worried for her, but didn't want to interrupt. So she sat, he stood, in silence for a while. Silent as it was, he could still see the tear she let go. _Probably shouldn't have waited for her to start crying,_ he thought as he emerged from the inky blackness into the buttery golden light of the pavilion.

"Hey," he said in a low voice, attempting to remain casual.

Her tear-slicked eyes darted up to his like a frightened animal's. "Oh, hey! Ah…shouldn't you be back at the house?"

"Shouldn't you?" He pulled a chair out and sat in it, facing her. He raised his shaggy head to look her in the face and said, "So, tell me what's wrong."

_Oh, Fang. I could tell you everything's wrong. But I'm too scared._

"You don't cry for any reason. Can you please tell me?"

Still, she said nothing. She'd grown used to not talking like this; it was easier on everybody else. It was getting so hard for her, though. So hard…and he probably wouldn't understand anyway.

"Please, Darby." He looked almost desperate now, creases forming between his dark brows.

Darby had grown so used to not telling just anybody these kinds of things. But maybe she could tell Fang.

She took a long breath of saline seaside air, and said shakily, "All right."


End file.
